Virgin Atlantic

[David_itl]

Routesonline also has the feature
https://www.routesonline.com/news/2...1/virgin-atlantic-adds-delhi-from-manchester-

containing this:
"According to preliminary figures from Sabre Market Intelligence, Mumbai was the largest O&D market between Manchester and India in 2019 with 86,300 two-way passengers. Delhi was second with 57,300 passengers.

 

[Scottie Dog]

I’m sure/hope discussions are going on behind closed doors ref the timings of domestic Flybe arrivals to coincide nicely with the VS long haul departures...top of the agenda I would like to think is Flybe over to the new pier 2 in the summer? But would that then mean AF/KL would also have to follow?

Unfortunately I think you will find that the domestic facility in T2 won't be ready until after 2022, at the earliest.

 

[Land23R]

Routesonline also has the feature
https://www.routesonline.com/news/2...1/virgin-atlantic-adds-delhi-from-manchester-

containing this:
"According to preliminary figures from Sabre Market Intelligence, Mumbai was the largest O&D market between Manchester and India in 2019 with 86,300 two-way passengers. Delhi was second with 57,300 passengers.

Must admit David I was rather surprised it's Delhi and not Mumbai. But hey, it's a service to India, so good news after being somewhat underwhelmed by Virgin's initial response to the TCX collapse, which may have been due to a/c availability.

 

[Llandudno]

Delhi has been the longer standing route for VS at LHR, and is 2 daily rather than 1 daily and only recently reintroduced BOM, so seems natural that VS feel safer launching DEL rather than BOM.

 

[Silvercity]

I flew with VS from LHR to DEL lost my luggage for whole duration I was away. Either that or was lost from MAN to LHR and not transferred between terminals .It wasn't good while away for 10 days.

 

[Scottie Dog]

An interesting article in today's Blue Swan Daily:

Corporate Travel Community

Welcome to the Corporate Travel Community. CTC is a network of corporate travel buyers who manage their organisations' travel portfolios.

blueswandaily.com

 

[pholling]

I’m sure/hope discussions are going on behind closed doors ref the timings of domestic Flybe arrivals to coincide nicely with the VS long haul departures...top of the agenda I would like to think is Flybe over to the new pier 2 in the summer? But would that then mean AF/KL would also have to follow?

Flybe, if they are still around in any form, will not move to T2 until there is contact domestic gates with a walking route to the street. Improving T3 domestic to T2 buses would be better yield management choice than trying to make the Flybe business travellers use busses. Coming in from BHD I can be on the street from docking in about the same time it takes to board the bus when arriving from BFS. Never mind the up to 20 min wait after that.

 

[Jamman]

Looks like Flybe will be rolled up tonight, planes being impounded and last flight to MAN on its way, sad times.

 

[Jerry]

Manchester airport pleads for Virgin Atlantic bailout

Manchester airport’s owner is pleading with the chancellor to prop up Virgin Atlantic as the airline makes a last-ditch lobbying push for a £500m taxpayer bailout to survive the coronavirus crisis.In a letter to Rishi Sunak, the boss of Manchester Airports Group, Charlie Cornish, stresses the carrie

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[Seasider]

Did they make the same plea for FlyBe?

 

[Jerry]

Did they make the same plea for FlyBe?

I don't know.

 

[Jerry]

Is Virgin potentially irreplaceable for Manchester especially after the loss of Thomas Cook?

 

[Coathanger16]

Is Virgin potentially irreplaceable for Manchester especially after the loss of Thomas Cook?

Some routes I imagine would be picked up by other airlines:

- JFK and Atlanta by Delta
- TUI could increase frequency to Orlando Sanford and Barbados.
- Delhi yet to begin but Air India, Vistara or Indigo could jump in

- Las Vegas and Los Angeles (~130k and ~47k in 2019 respectively) would probably be lost

 

[rutamkrd]

Left field Vegas and Orlando would make pretty good meat for Level imho

 

[paully]

why not, IAG would be keen to capitalise, without treading on stable mate Aer lingus toes.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

I feel Virgin need to be kept. They may not be turning profitable money at the moment (i believe they will get there eventually), but they are an important aspect of British aviation and for American aviation sector. I've read on other forums; they have large loyal following over in America who will only fly with them when UK bound. They also keep BA in check with prices etc. Without Virgin BA would dominate the UK-USA market and charge a premium for shocking service & product.

MAN would also loose out and not for the better. Would other airlines also be so keen to step in and replace the lost capacity, jobs & pick up the aircraft? In the inevitable downturn i suspect not.

 

[Rob c DSA]

I feel Virgin need to be kept. They may not be turning profitable money at the moment (i believe they will get there eventually), but they are an important aspect of British aviation and for American aviation sector. I've read on other forums; they have large loyal following over in America who will only fly with them when UK bound. They also keep BA in check with prices etc. Without Virgin BA would dominate the UK-USA market and charge a premium for shocking service & product.

MAN would also loose out and not for the better. Would other airlines also be so keen to step in and replace the lost capacity, jobs & pick up the aircraft? In the inevitable downturn i suspect not.

Are they more important than Flybe it's a tricky situation, I agree BA need keeping in check but its a real issue why save Virgin but not Thomas Cook or Flybe you could argue Thomas Cook solely as an airline not the whole business and debt were more worth saving at the time than Virgin are now losing shed loads?.

I fear for Manchester as an airport all the good or more excellent work over a 6-7 year period could be virtually wiped out how many new carriers has the airport attracted in that time 20-30 all the long haul stuff but with Monarch, Thomas Cook and Flybe gone those who won't start operations like WestJet in 2020 maybe not at all the airlines who could fail and others who retrench, all that work could just go through no fault of the airport your talking about one of the real success stories over the last few years along with Stansted having the rug pulled from beneath them here I hope Virgin survive and think they will however its a worrying time for the industry and at present pretty much anything could happen.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Whether or not Monarch, Thomas Cook or FlyBe should have been helped is a different argument. They failed against the backdrop of a 'normal' trading environment. If the UK had a US-style Chapter 11 arrangement perhaps they could have been saved. But that argument has been discussed before.

There is a very big difference this time. Carriers such as Virgin Atlantic are not facing collapse due to poor commercial choices. They're in trouble because their customers have been ordered not to do business with them by government decree. For a long and unspecified period of time. And it's not just Virgin. No carrier can hold out indefinitely with their customers banned from travelling.

The UK's railways faced the same problem. But the government HAS already stepped in and underwritten the train operating companies for the duration. Bus companies will be protected. Help has been provided for the hospitality sector too. Small businesses including pubs and restaurants. These have been helped (as they should be) ... but so far the UK's airlines have been left hanging even as other governments bail out their own. Our airlines need a package of assistance NOW, regardless of the howls of protest from opportunist eco-extremists.

There will be an airline industry on the other side of this. But unless Sunak acts soon, services will be provided by foreign carriers which were bailed out by overseas governments. Our own world-class industry will be the stuff of fond memories only. Meanwhile, the government will ultimately pay up anyway (with our money). Benefits and unemployment allowances due to thousands of former aviation industry staff. All income tax payments from thousands of highly-skilled workers in the sector forfeited. And even the airlines will get taxpayers' money (once it is too late). Since the government ordered airlines' customers to stay at home, liquidators will successfully argue that they are liable to make good the losses arising from that. There is direct liability. They'll be able to point to the precedent of rail and bus companies, helped for that very reason. And those liquidators will win that argument. On behalf of bondholders and shareholders. But not the staff. They'll be stuffed. Too late for them. But at least Rishi will be able to tell himself he has single-handedly saved the planet.

 

[Jerry]

But at least Rishi will be able to tell himself he has single-handedly saved the planet.

People may say I'm biased but I generally think that the government's attitude is that as long as the 2 big carriers for London are ok then everything is fine.
They've given Easyjet a £600 million loan and BA is cash rich and I think they know the Scottish government and the Channel island governments will support Loganair and Blue islands and Aurigny, so I generally think that they aren't bothered by the rest.
I do hope that they prove me wrong.

 

[Coathanger16]

Don't forget Virgin is predominantly a London based airline with over 80% of their flights operating from Heathrow or Gatwick. Although they play a key role in long haul at Manchester, it only accounts for ~15% of Virgin's flights.

The problem Virgin has is its largest shareholders are Richard Branson (multi-billionaire) and Delta (one of the worlds largest airlines). I've highlighted before why those two may not be able to fund Virgin through the Coronavirus, but the key is whether they'll be able to convince the government that their owners can't finance them.

I don't think it's a case of government only willing to support the largest London airlines, but airlines being able to provide evidence that without government support they wouldn't survive.

Also you can't really compare aviation to bus & rail services. The latter largely (exception below) requires companies to bid to the government to operate a franchise with them then being the only operator on that part of the network (plus some overlapping parts in some cases). If one of these rail/bus firms were to collapse it will leave large parts of the country without a rail service hence government stepping in.

On the other hand, "open access" rail operators haven't receiving funding from the government. Franchise operators pay the government to operate a franchise, whereas open access operators don't - https://www.businesstraveller.com/b...4/14/government-support-for-open-access-rail/

As for Virgin keeping BA in check, from Heathrow:

Virgin currently operates 16 routes and BA competes on all 16.

Of these 16, 12 have other airlines operating that would be able to compete with BA if Virgin collapsed (excluding airlines that BA has codeshares with e.g. American) e.g. Air China and China Eastern operate Heathrow to Shanghai as well as BA & Virgin.

There are just 4 routes Lagos, Las Vegas, Miami & Seattle that BA and its codeshare partners would have a monopoly on if Virgin collapsed.

Delta could step in and serve Seattle (it did used to before they took a controlling share of Virgin).

One final point worth mentioning - the UK and Heathrow are one of the few, if not only, countries and airports in Europe that have more than one 'national' airline operating from. The only other that comes to mind is Madrid and Iberia/Air Europa, however the owners of Iberia (IAG) have recently bought Air Europe so they won't be competing against each other in the future.